In miniature, October 9

• Baltimore City’s awful management has already brought its antiquated water system to the brink of ruin, so it takes a lot of nerve for the city to demand that it control a contemplated regional authority that would bail it out [Christine Condon, Baltimore Sun]
• A genuinely terrible idea I’ve written about before — the use of eminent domain in an attempt to seize sports and entertainment enterprises and trademarks — rears its head again, this time regarding the Baltimore Orioles [Pamela Wood, Baltimore Banner]
• Marylanders should get ready for tax hikes [Christopher Summers, Maryland Reporter]
• Ghastly ideas on the march: following big MoCo win, progressive groups push rent control in Howard County [Adam Pagnucco]
• It would be nice if the Maryland General Assembly stopped passing unconstitutional laws, especially after being warned repeatedly that what they were passing was unconstitutional [Jacob Sullum, Reason]
• Last year, Baltimore’s public schools spent $22,000 per student, a record figure that will rise further with the Kirwan spending extravaganza. And the city’s test scores continue to underperform those of every major system except Detroit’s [Sean Kennedy, City Journal]

In miniature, September 24

• State’s high court declined last year to address the legislature’s self-gerrymander: “A new analysis from the University of Virginia Center for Politics found that Democrats were overrepresented in the General Assembly by about 5 percentage points.” [Pamela Wood, Baltimore Banner]
• Washington College in Chestertown allows a heckler’s veto, as organized by flyers and social media, to silence Princeton Prof. Robert George. [Will Bontrager, Easton Star-Democrat]
• You mean we were supposed to have a policy against that? “Until earlier this month, the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development had no policy in place for when building inspectors were offered bribes on the job, an investigation by Baltimore City Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming found.” [Lia Russell, Baltimore Sun] “Baltimore IG Says Housing Manager Said Bribes OK if “Under Allowable Dollar Limit” [Mark Uncapher, The Duckpin]
• Arrests are way down in Montgomery County. How much if any of this represents “de-policing”? [Adam Pagnucco series]
• In Frederick County, council rumblings of a development moratorium [Ceoli Jacoby and Ryan Marshall, FNP; more]. County has also opened comment on proposed ordinance that would drastically expand powers of its historic preservation commission, which has heretofore generally lacked compulsory powers to stop development. Included would be a broad expansion of the types of properties covered (e.g. of “cultural” and not just architectural or historic importance), and new penalties for neglect of covered properties. On the brighter side, the county has settled its long-running legal dispute with the Town of New Market over a proposed development; due credit to County Executive Jessica Fitzwater and Mayor Winslow Burhans for finding common ground and a way to move forward [Jacobi, FNP]
• Maryland high court decision in Attorney Grievance Commission v. Pierre, in which a lawyer was accused inter alia of making false statements about sitting judges in her campaign, gets national attention [Eugene Volokh]

In miniature, February 20

• Interesting: Democratic Gov. Wes Moore will be a featured speaker at the mostly-dissident-Republican Principles First conference in Washington. See you there? [Mar. 3-5] 
• Maryland Senate GOP backing a bill opposed by Maryland Shall Issue to lengthen penalties for unpermitted gun possession in the state [Mikenzie Frost/WBFF, Dylan Segelbaum/Baltimore Banner, Stephen Gutowski]
• Maryland Republican Party submits name of election conspiracist William Newton for seat on state board of elections. That won’t do, says Gov. Moore [Brian Griffiths, The Duckpin]
• 23 Baltimore schools had zero students proficient in math, with sidelight on how some Baltimore politicos refuse to talk to a major local press outlet [Mikenzie Frost/WBFF]
• After razor-thin Elrich-Blair outcome in Montgomery County executive race — a case for ranked-choice voting if there ever was one — Elrich isn’t exactly playing the gracious winner [Adam Pagnucco]
• Jump-starting housing construction in Baltimore? Ryan Dorsey bill would abolish parking minimums for residential units, lift city’s restrictions on converting single family homes into low-density multi-units in many residential areas [Alex Holt, Greater Greater Washington]

In miniature, November 22

• The week in blame-shifting: Baltimore files lawsuit against tobacco companies seeking to recoup the cost of dealing with cigarette butt litter [CBS News]
• A lot of people warned at the time that Maryland’s first-in-the-nation digital ad tax was unconstitutionally drawn, and now Judge Alison Asti has struck it down [Callan Tansill-Suddath, DCist; an earlier instance in which courts struck down a media law after the General Assembly ignored warnings of likely unconstitutionality]
• Montgomery County will make a costly mistake if it goes forward with plans to ban most gas hookups in new buildings [Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery Perspective, more]
• To my list of favorite Maryland place names I can now add Tippity Wichity Island in St. Mary’s County [Baltimore Banner, more, it’s for sale]
• Frederick Magazine profiles Landmarks Foundation of Frederick County, which just had its biggest attendance ever for Oktoberfest at Schifferstadt [Kate Poindexter]
• Baltimore needs to change, part 783: Bridgeport, Newark, Detroit, and Baltimore in that order are the cities that place the highest tax burdens on households, and that’s true both at $75K and $150K/year household income levels. Among the lowest: Las Vegas, Houston, Jacksonville, Fla. and Manchester, N.H. [Chris Edwards, Cato]

Baltimore intends to remain Squeegee City

In Baltimore, aggressive squeegee kids have been a presence in downtown traffic for years. Now, as, Capital News Service reports, the city unveils a plan to 1) ask them to stay out of certain densely driven corridors, 2) pay some of them to change the way they spend their time, and 3) issue fines to drivers who tip them. Newly elected Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates took part in the team that drew up the plan but has also offered a more straightforward analysis of the situation: what the kids do is already an unlawful interference with traffic.

Gov. Larry Hogan has long criticized the city’s non-enforcement policies, saying in July, “It certainly has had a major impact on people being afraid to come to the city because they’ve been harassed for years and years.” But much of the city’s active political class disagrees with him, dismissing as anecdotal or subjective the accounts of drivers, female and elderly especially, who say they have felt intimidated or coerced to give money during the exchanges.

Sometimes it appears being “made to feel unsafe” isn’t such a big deal after all.

In miniature, October 1

• Enjoyed joining Sen. Cheryl Kagan [D-Gaithersburg] on her podcast. We explored election law topics, including ranked choice voting which we both favor (21:30+). But also included throughout are many questions I’ve never gotten asked elsewhere, which gives it a more personal flavor than with many other podcasts [“Kibbitzing with Kagan”]
• Running through October 30 at Maryland Ensemble Theatre: THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT, terrific Broadway play about (yes) fact checking. We were lucky enough to have playwright and old friend Jeremy Kareken to Frederick to discuss it. MET put on a boffo performance, get tickets here: https://ci.ovationtix.com/35900/production/1128353
• What fun to go to both MML and MaCo conferences in Ocean City this summer! And I hope to be back as part of a program one of these times.
• The Libertarian Party has taken an unpleasant turn nationally, yet in Maryland they’ve nominated an unusually credible candidate for governor. David Lashar has a strong background in public administration, having served in a responsible role in the Hogan health department, and mutual friends attest to his talent and good character. Dilemmas! [Brian Griffiths, The Duckpin]
• Stephen Walters on Baltimore: “It’s easy to dismiss stories about threatening behavior by squeegee ‘workers’ as isolated incidents. But they’re real, they’re common, and they do, in today’s parlance, make people feel unsafe.” [City Journal]
• I’m Unaffiliated now myself: “The Maryland Republican Party got together and committed ritualized mass suicide. The only thing missing was Jim Jones and a glass of Kool-Aid. I hope it was a good party.” [Doug Mayer quoted by Pamela Wood]

In miniature, January 29

• I’m honored to have joined the board of the Frederick County Landmarks Foundation, one of my favorite local organizations, which maintains historic buildings such as Schifferstadt and runs the wonderful annual Barnstormers Tour.

• Howard Gorrell: More hypocrisy on Maryland redistricting [Maryland Reporter] LRAC’s legislative maps, unlike MCRC’s, split the city of Gaithersburg. Might that decision be vulnerable to a legal challenge? [David Lublin, The Seventh State] To help pry open the closed shop that is Maryland politics, try open primaries [Colin Alter, same]

• Reminder: Del. Dan Cox’s many baseless election-theft claims include insinuations of “rampant” poll fraud in four GOP-heavy Maryland counties that did not return the sort of margins for Trump he expected a year ago: Frederick, Carroll, Anne Arundel, and Harford. [Brian Griffiths, The Duckpin] Numbers on county shifts here; note that while these four suburban counties all swung hard against Trump (10-13 points), as did more Democratic suburban jurisdictions like Howard (10) and Baltimore County (11), many counties that are partially suburban in character swung a lot too, such as Calvert and Talbot with 11-point swings, Washington 9, Wicomico and St. Mary’s with 8, and Queen Anne’s with 7.

• The redistricting season has now wrapped up with the legislature choosing gerrymanders over our commission’s fair maps for both Congressional and legislative elections. Some clips: Henry Olsen/Washington Post, WTOP, Star-Democrat (Easton). And I’m quoted in this Frederick News-Post piece by Jack Hogan on the implications of the legislative maps for Frederick County.

• Maryland ranks near the cellar in business tax climate and Andrew Macloughlin of the Free State Foundation explains why. [Maryland Reporter]

• Baltimore Magazine cover story on literary Baltimore. And a happy Baltimore hometown story.

Marilyn Mosby files FCC complaint against broadcast criticism

Marilyn Mosby, State’s Attorney for Baltimore City, doesn’t like the many critical and investigative stories that WBFF Baltimore has run about her and just sent an astonishing letter to the Federal Communications Commission demanding that its “coverage [be] curtailed and ceased.”  Mosby’s letter really must be seen to be believed: it openly seeks to intimidate and chill speech protected by the First Amendment.

Notes UCLA lawprof and leading free speech law expert Eugene Volokh writes: “I note that none of the letter’s claims of ‘distortion’ are supported by any actual explanation of why the stories are supposedly inconsistent with the facts.” After examining and dismissing as unactionable other charges raised in the Mosby letter, including invasion of her privacy, he adds: “certainly critical news coverage, whether of prosecutors, police officers, or anyone else, can’t be suppressed on the grounds that some tiny fraction of the audience may be so angered by it that they will commit crimes against the people being criticized. I expect the FCC to (rightly) dismiss the complaint.”

It seems to me that Mosby’s letter should be met by a united front of condemnation among free speech advocates, media people (in Maryland especially), and those who track D.A. misconduct. Prosecutors must not be allowed to chill and suppress critical journalism about their doings.

In miniature, May 29

• My law blog Overlawyered ceases publication this weekend after nearly 21 years, you can read its Maryland archives here;
• How about “no.” Does “no” work for you? “Baltimore Wants To Sue Gun Makers Over Gang Violence” [Cam Edwards, Bearing Arms]
• The environmental group fretted that suspending the bag tax will leave “the public with a false sense of security in encouraging single-use plastic shopping bags” which “are difficult to clean.” Yo, Sierra Club! That’s why they’re called “single-use” bags [Jim Bovard, American Conservative; Josh Kurtz, Maryland Matters]
• Precinct-level reporting, confidentiality, ballots returned without signatures: the details of vote-by-mail (VBM) Maryland still needs to work out [Cheryl Kagan, Howard Lee Gorrell]
• Some good ideas in here for your county or municipality, too: “D.C., Maryland Jurisdictions Start Deferring Taxes, Fees and Regulations” [Adam Pagnucco, The Seventh State]
• Montgomery County development politics analyzed along the lines of the classic Bootleggers and Baptists model [Arnold Kling]

In miniature, October 19

• Federal judge rejects four states’ suit challenging Congress’s changes to the SALT (state and local tax) exemption. Maryland AG Brian Frosh wasted the state’s resources and credibility on a suit that should never have been filed [Ilya Somin]
• While on the subject, it’s worth noting how the state’s drug pricing law went down in flames, although the blame for its indefensibility would in this case be the legislature’s [Josh Kurtz, Maryland Matters]
• Campaign to raise legal age of marriage to as high as 18 belatedly runs into some serious opposition as ACLU, other liberal groups concerned with youth rights and autonomy join conservatives skeptical of forcing out-of-wedlock births and libertarians who support, well, liberty [Dartunorro Clark, MSNBC] Due credit to the Women’s Law Center of Maryland, which helped block a bad bill of this sort in the 2018 Assembly, pointing out that there are other ways to detect and intervene against involuntary marriages [Scott Dance, Baltimore Sun; an opposing view (i.e., favoring ban) from UMD sociologist Philip Cohen]
• Yuripzy Morgan took time on her WBAL radio show to discuss my article on the Supreme Court’s consideration of job bias law and you can listen here;
• Stephen J.K. Walters makes a case for aerial surveillance as a Baltimore policing tool [Law and Liberty] In 2016 my colleague Matthew Feeney expressed libertarian misgivings about the “secret and indiscriminate surveillance” such systems enable;
• “Maryland’s State Pension May Be Only 35 Percent Funded” [Carol Park, Maryland Public Policy Institute]